Abstract: A method backs up computer data by organizing update requests into groups. All update requests in one group complete concurrently before requests of a subsequent group complete.

Abstract: An apparatus and method provides the capability of mirroring storage from a primary system to a mirrored system in a way that uses parallelism in the mirrored system to maximize the efficiency of writing data to the mirrored storage for operations that do not conflict while serializing operations that do conflict. The mirroring of the present invention is “logical mirroring”, which does not require identical disk drives, and which supports mirroring between geographically remote locations to protect against catastrophic site failure. Parallelism is achieved in the mirrored system by dividing the virtual address space into multiple ranges, and by assigning a group of tasks to each range. When an operation is received on the mirrored system, the virtual address range that the operation affects is determined, and the operation is then delegated to the task group that corresponds to the affected virtual address range. By dividing the virtual address space into ranges, tasks in different ranges (i.e.

Abstract: An apparatus, clustered computer system, program product and method utilize a unique prepare operation in connection with a resource action to effectively “lock out” missing or inactive cluster entities such as nodes and cluster objects from rejoining a clustered computer system subsequent to the resource action. The prepare operation includes the modification of one or more cluster configuration parameters associated with a plurality of entities in a clustered computer system, such that any such cluster entity that is active during the prepare operation accepts the modifications, while any such cluster entity that is inactive during the prepare operation does not accept the modifications.

Abstract: An apparatus, clustered computer system, program product and method utilize a unique prepare operation in connection with a resource action to effectively “lock out” missing or inactive cluster entities such as nodes and cluster objects from rejoining a clustered computer system subsequent to the resource action. The prepare operation includes the modification of one or more cluster configuration parameters associated with a plurality of entities in a clustered computer system, such that any such cluster entity that is active during the prepare operation accepts the modifications, while any such cluster entity that is inactive during the prepare operation does not accept the modifications.

Abstract: Logic for decreasing the number of cache lines dedicated to user data. When pools for allocation are selected using a dynamic storage allocation procedure, the size of a data block is compared to the size of the allocated pool. If the comparison results meet a predetermined criterion, the logic aligns the data to the beginning of a cache line and places the header in a separate cache line that may be deallocated. And if the data will fit within one-half of a cache slot in the allocated pool, then the line or lines having the header data can be re-used as the header is deallocated. Otherwise, user data blocks are placed in cache lines that are spatially local.